Art & Perception

Noticing that prolonged standing at an easel and painting with the right hand results in a twisted torso, it seemed a good idea to spend time to learn sketching with the left hand to twist the torso in the opposite direction and thereby, hopefully, realign centrally.

Remembering that da Vinci is reported to have been ambidextrous, I looked him up on Wikipedia and noticed with disappointment that his Vitruvian Man shows two opposite twists. The belly button is displaced with respect to the sternum in one direction and the sternum and his nose are displaced in the opposite direction. more… »

In a few months, I’ll be back in Nevada, tackling the Amargosa Playa again. This time I want to do a set of painted panels, five 5×5 foot ones (25 horizontal feet). I have various notions of how this might work out in paint, but will have to wait until I get there to see what actually happens. I also want to do something similar in textiles, perhaps only some preliminary image making, saving stitching for when I return to Portland. But I am mulling over both projects in my mind, trying to think how I might work them.

I just read a blog entry (dated August 17) by Jenny Bowker, who is an art colleague who works in quilted textiles. She tackled the same kind of landscape and had the same kind of hopes about what she might evoke, with some additions that the Amargosa doesn’t have: the presence of a handsome driver and some marvelous land forms. Her blog entry, which finishes with the photo of her textile work, is worth reading for sheer pleasure. But it makes me somewhat nervous about my ambitions.

Here’s the photo of Jenny’s artwork, which won a prize at the Canberra quilt exhibit and, I’m sure, will be seen often at other places around the globe.

Jenny Bowker, Sandstorm over the White Desert, about life size (see her blog entry for scale)

And here is an photo or two of what I will be facing, again

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I feel as if I have been away forever. Life overtook my Art and Perception, although not completely my art and not completely all my perceptions.

So here’s an update.

After a long struggle with health and painting, I’ve finally revived and have been painting the landscapes of the Willamette Valley in western Oregon. The change of venue from the wild and awesome desert to the gentle scenery of the Valley was fairly traumatic and also the cause (I think; I hope) of some really bad paintings, now discarded. But I’ve kept a few and think I may be able to tolerate the pretty landscapes and conventional views to which I’ve been subjected. (I’m engaged with a group of plein air artists who always choose not to paint the snarky or sardonic.)

The paintings imaged below have been done since the end of June. The first four (through the Storm) were attempts to provide a sense of expansion outward rather than focusing into the painting. This outward away from the center is what I feel the desert does, and I thought painting sky and/or water might keep me in touch with that expansion of space so essential to desert painting.

Morning Fog in the Gorge, 12 x 16″, Oil on board, 2009

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Uncondiotionally 2009

Tittle: Unconditionally
Size: 102×76 cm
Medium: Oil on canvas

Don’t know if you all read on my web biography that recently I have embarked in a deep and personal spiritual journey that has opened a door to the ethereal world of Reiki and crystal healing.
Through meditation and welcoming my Spirit and Angels to guide me through my work I have learned to give Reiki to my paint tubes and canvases before I start a painting.
My intentions are to create more than just a painting, but share a healing experience through the vision of the Divine irradiating a sense of peace and love of nature.

I am not sure if you all seen the film ‘The Secret’ but there is a very interesting part about a Feng Shui consultant working with a painter and how his works become the reality in his life through the law of attraction.

What are your intentions in your creations? Are you attracting what you want into your life through your works? Are you really showing your world and the true inner self?
What do you really want to achieve?
Your true self is how you feel yourself when nobody’s watching. It is where your deepest thoughts live. It is what you ultimately think of yourself, how you treat yourself and what you fear others might see inside you. It is your most native and real personality, your true Spirit!

Once you change the way you feel about yourself and evoke it into your works, the law of attraction will change your life. You are the magnificent creator of your own reality!

Running Free by Angela Ferreira

Title: Running Free
Size: 102×127 cm
Medium: Oil on canvas

A reference to a recent New Yorker Critic at Large (March 30th)  review suggests that a work of art is good if it rises out of necessity and if the artist is capable of carrying out the idea to its appropriate end. As a letter writer paraphrases:

“This matters; this has purpose” and “I can do this, I am able, I can carry out this task to its appropriate end” (correspondence from Joachim B. Lyon, Stanford, California, New Yorker, May 4, 2009).

I found these notions both bemusing and contra-indicated. What do you think?

(Oh, and here’s an image from Rhyolite Nevada ghost town. I don’t know if it has either purpose or, if I paint it, as I intend to do, if I am adequate to the chore.)

After being confronted by my husband about the amount of spending on my personal obsessions I decided to share my own extravaganzas: scarves and crystals.

They are all over the house and I collect them incessantly… almost ritually and impulsively. They make me feel good, inspire me and are so irresistible to me! So I am showing just some of them from my collection here.

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While words such as “excessive” or “obsessive” might sometimes be used to describe persons with psychological or emotional issues, John Pomara, artist and assistant professor for Arts & Performance, thinks these qualities can be good – for artists.

Read more… Link

I was wondering if any of you have obsessions and would like to share them here on A & P. Would love to hear from your own eccentricities!?!